gimme a “0″!

now to read…

FITZ!

Call your Senators!
Send this one back to the House with Net Neutrality!

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) is open to consumer protections but is loath to interfere with commercial deals among phone and cable companies and the content providers, a committee staffer said.

Well guess what else your phone and cable comapnies have been up to according tothe AP:

http://apnews.myway.com/articl.....7F080.html

- Federal and local police across the country - as well as some of the nation’s best-known companies - have been gathering Americans’ phone records from private data brokers without subpoenas or warrants.
These brokers, many of whom market aggressively on the Internet, have broken into customer accounts online, tricked phone companies into revealing information and sometimes acknowledged that their practices violate laws, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Legal experts and privacy advocates said police reliance on private vendors who commit such acts raises civil liberties questions.

Those using data brokers include agencies of the Homeland Security and Justice departments - including the FBI and U.S. Marshal’s Service - and municipal police departments in California, Florida, Georgia and Utah. Experts believe hundreds of other departments frequently use such services.

All the time we were sooo worried about the NSA and the telcos had already beatenthem to it. It’s probably cheaper for the NSA to buy it than to gather it themselves!

Thanks so much to Dover Bitch for sending along an article so that I could get a little done around the house this morning. (Whew, you blog nonstop for four days and see how lovely your kitchen gets…)

Makes sense Stevens gave a ton of our cash to the TV manufacturers and voted in favor of torture. I am being tortured by my TV right now. Chimpy is ’speaking’ in Austria live on CNN now.

looseheadprop — more on the NSA domestic spying issue can be found in this Salon article as well:

http://www.salon.com/news/feat.....ex_np.html

Because, you know, why should the Bush Administration follow the laws like every other President? That’s so quaint!

twolf1 — you need a 3 year old. We’re watching Dumbo. (Hmmmm…)

CHS - I feel like I DO have a 3 year old with chimpy on my TV screen! A very spoiled 3 year old.

I guess, in a way, I am watching Dumbo too ;)

the ‘real’ Dumbo had a nice Mother …

Assurances from Kerry’s office that he is solid on Net Neutrality.

twolf1 10
you should have seen mommybrain’s 7 (?) year old son with a t-shirt on that said

“I’m already smarter than the president!”

too true.

Put this on the wrong post!

I don’t believe for one minute that Stevens cares one whit about consumers, and hope that Inouye can prevail. I fully expect a bill to be voted out of committee, and given that I don’t think enough Senators know enough about the issue to vote with intelligence, the bill that gets to the floor better be a good one.

OT - lhp: I saw that article in my local paper this morning; nothing like a little privacy violation to get the blood boiling. What really pissed me off was the government making use of these services, no doubt so they can claim that the government isn’t violating your Fourth Amendment rights - well, no, because they’re letting someone else do that for them.

We can’t take another 2 years of unchecked power.

reporter asked bush about why europeans think America is more dangerous to peace than Iran and what he thinks about those polls.

Typical chimpy response - that is absurd. i don’t listen to polls. blah blah blah. taking credit for declaring Darfur ‘genocide’… we feed the needy… blah blah

LOL, his mic cut out for a sec.

I called Senator Gordon Smith’s (Republican, Oregon) office. I was told that Senator Smith has not “publicly commented” on whether or not he would support the Snowe-Dorgan Net Neutrality Bill. I asked the staffer who was taking the calls if that meant that Senator Smith hadn’t decided or whether it meant that he has decided but just hasn’t told anyone what his decision was. At this point the staffer got quite flustered as my question took him off of his talking point. My guess - Senator Smith has decided not to support Net Neutrality but is trying to minimize the political pressure and fallout by staying quiet about his intentions for as long as possible.

If other’s call Senator Smith’s office and are told he hasn’t “publicly commented” about whether he supports Snowe-Dorgan,you might press the person answering the phone about what that means. Senator Smith’s DC phone number is
(202)224-3753.

Just been looking at the Commerce Committee membership . . . Anyone know where George Allen sits on this? Seems to me that if he’s in a stiff reelection campaign, he might be more than a little amenable to listening to some of his online constituents. Ditto McCain, who’s running for president.

Fax and call, but given that this is an Internet-related issue, perhaps some very creative emails might also be in order.

Virginians and Arizonans: Keep it brief, keep it clean, and hit ‘em hard!

Yes, I called the senators’ offices and left a message. I’m in my mid-fifities an dthis is my first computer that I’ve had, what a trip- real eye opener. I’ve had this computer for about 7months, I love to read so I guess they do not call it the information highway for nothing. I just started following FDL after watching the conference on C-Span less than 2 weeks ago. I droppedd AT&T and am now with Quest. I think the phone corporations have alot to do with this additional money grab now before congress. Perhaps congress will feel obligated to pay them for spying on us.

just to doublecheck: we want S-2917 Snowe-Dorgan — right?

I’m going downtown today and both of my Senators have their offices in the same building. I plan to pop in personally and convey my request…

Nancy at 18 — Welcome! So glad you found our blog and our group of concerned folks. And very glad you are joining the conversation — the more voices we have speaking up about the issues that concern us, the more our elected officials get reminded that they work for us, and not the other way around.

The two missing U.S. soldiers found yesterday were beheaded and showed signs of being “brutally tortured before their death.” Their remains are being sent to the U.S. for DNA testing, suggesting they “had been wounded or mutilated beyond recognition.”

If you are against this war, your response would be, see, that’s what the US torturing has brought on.

If you are for this war, your response would be that’s why we need to torture. It’s an eye for an eye.

Ann and Christy,

The thing about the AP story that got me, is not what the gov’t did wrong (surprised ya’, didn’t I?), it’s that these largely unregulated PRIVATE “for profit” companies are doing with our private information –and we let them!!!

Just like the impure food scandals in the late 1800 led to the precurser of the FDA, and like the stock market crash of 1929 led to the creation of the SEC and so on.

I think there is an impending privacy crisis coming in this country and eventually people are going to demand that there meai be treated with the same safeguards as their snail mail.

Someday, (I hope) ISPs will market themselves on how secure your data is not only from hackers, but from the providers themselves. I market will grow up for individual encription systems.

Believe me, if I had ANY tech skill at all, I would be trying to develope that right this minute. A lot of this technology already exists (thumbprint encoded passprotection and the like–I have a really good consultant that I use for corporate investigations. he does biometric pass protection for NASA–the stuff that you can get for a big corpoarte system is fabulous) but it has not made it into a form that that reaches the average consumer.

The person who figures out how to make fast, easy to use biometric indivdual encryption that will not hog all the memory on a PC with a failsafe delivery de-encyption (kinda like a reverse spam list)will make a fortune AND save the right to privavcy.

Oh and piss off Rummy and General Hyden, tee hee.

Boy did I love that Frontline last night. It was perfect. Such an easy to follow narrative from such complicated facts.

Perfect.

And I like how they described Pat’s role “the special prosecutor began to shine a light on the “dark side”.”

THAT IS what Pat’s best service through this whole thing has been. Not just the indictment of Libby and anybody else that may yet come down the pike. It’s the DRIP, Drip, drip that never seems to end exposing more and more of the evil things Cheney and Rummy and the rest of Bushco have done.

“I think the phone corporations have alot to do with this additional money grab now before congress. Perhaps congress will feel obligated to pay them for spying on us.”

Yeah, especially considering the fact that we’re already paying the NSA to spy on us.

I ask you: Why would sane people want to PAY the federal government to spy on them?

Hi Nancy! Welcome to the lake. Last night I was watching the news on teevee, which I never do and I couldn’t believe the amount of propaganda. Then it hit me…when Republican anchors give the news, it is actually

Proper Gander :)

Wilson, yes, we do want Snowe-Dorgan.

Yes, *ilson, that’s it.

Hello to Nancy - another activist with heart! This place is nirvana to me.

Good morning everyone. I have the day off and intend to do something useful. Like fighting for net neutrality. Also just broke my rule about never going to WaPo except to read the great Froomkin. I left a question for the producer of Frontline’s The Dark Side who will be live today. I encourage everyone else to do so!

WAY OT: Christy, I’ve always wanted to try Chess Pie. Your recipe looks great. Thanks!

You know the Senate would better serve the consituancy by randomly picking 100 people off the street-Stevens represents the obvious problem, Dem and Repug, corporate influence-this is the problem that needs to be corrected by we the people.

I sent a fax to each member of the Commerce Committee, figuring even those who favor net neutrality should be encouraged to support it more strongly.

Except one fax line kept being busy, Senator Dorgan. Then I realized, oh, like Snowe-Dorgan? Probably he gets it already. :)

Christy, I know you’re superhuman, but I wonder whether you’ve had time to grab a read of emptywheel’s “Anatomy of a White House Smear, 3.5″ yet. Went up yesterday, long and meaty.

Any sightings/soundings from Murray Waas lately?

’tis nice indeed to be able to call my Senator’s office not to citizen lobby for an issue but to say, “Thanks, Sen. Dorgan.”

Christy: Can the President issue a sealed vs sealed signing statement on pardons?

For anyone who missed the Frontline Dark Side piece last night - Lots of stuff here:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/

lhp - not surprised at all that you are outraged at the invasion of privacy by private companies; that the government is in collusion with them to further their own ends just adds to it. And if the government is using private companies, how can they institute any protections, and how can they impose regulation that would cut off their own source for illegally obtained information?

Am curious to know how the retrieval of information on this basis is affecting both criminal and civil litigation. What would bother me is that these private companies could be providing the government with the information they need to obtain warrants in the first place, and that warrants that appear, on their face, to be legal, may not be. Are defense lawyers starting to ask the government to disclose the sources for information used to obtain warrants? And if so, are they meeting with any success?

Lotus at 30 — I haven’t had a chance to read it yet. Have been trying to dig out from under nasty dishes and a large pile of toys this morning — have been putting off the rest of life for the blog, and hit the wall this morning. *g* Will hopefuly get to it when nap time rolls around and my brain has a minute to think.

ccmask at 32 — I don’t know. But I did a long discussion about that on what I do know for neurophius either on Taylor’s thread or Jordan’s thread last night. Bottom line — speculating as to what it could or could not be (when there are SO many options outside the Fitzgerald case) is not something I can really do, absent any substantive, independently confirmable information. We’re all just going to have to wait and see.

Meta at 33 — I’m hoping to get something up on that today, when I can get a chance to re-watch the show. I Tivo’d it last night. It was an amazing broadcast — so much of what we have talked about here, but put together in a whole with visuals and back-up interviews. Amazing stuff.

Isn’t it funny that the only time the Properganderists put up a poll is after the preznut does something special?

Right after Zarqawi was murdered, the pollsters were polling like crazy…”Do you think the preznut is doing a good job on the War on Terror” Vote here!!

However, when the preznut has bad news (like yesterday when the two soldiers were found) not one station threw up a poll.

Also, when I hear 37%, I think about how the election was rigged and I deduct 15% because I can.

Anne asks,

Am curious to know how the retrieval of information on this basis is affecting both criminal and civil litigation. What would bother me is that these private companies could be providing the government with the information they need to obtain warrants in the first place, and that warrants that appear, on their face, to be legal, may not be. Are defense lawyers starting to ask the government to disclose the sources for information used to obtain warrants? And if so, are they meeting with any success?

No kindding! Do these clucks realize or care how much they could be doing to undermine the whole criminal justice system? Or at least a might-big chunk of it?

Sen. Inouye: “Under the current language, network operators [telcos?] will have the ability to dictate what the Internet of the future will look like, what content it will include and how it will operate.

Nobody seems to be saying it, so maybe I’m wrong, but given the NSA rooms in St. Louis and San Francisco AT&T operations, isn’t this essentially saying that the NSA==telcos will be “managing”, ie, controling content on the internet? This really isn’t about telco costs is it. This is about NSA control. Right?

We have to prevent the “foxification” of the internet…..

Can you imagine what that would be like?

Yeah, “they are not going to use my pipes for free.” Fuck his pipes, nationalize them! And while we are at it, nationalize every toll highway, and have free education from preschool to grad school, and pay for all of this by taxing income and wealth, to quote Thomas Jefferson, “geometrically.” I am so pissed off I could spit. This is not good for my heart and I can’t afford a bypass because there is no fucking universal health care! OK, pant, pant, I’m through, and I am so pissed that my hands are shaking and I can’t type straight. Arrgh.

Preview is your friend . . . Preview is your friend . . .

“No kidding”

“a mighty-big chunk”

Called Dodds office, but he’s a cosponsor of the bill. Called Lieberman, and he’s undecided, of course. I put in my two cents and also said he should be in favor of the Feingold/Kerry Iraq bill.

Any other CT people, let’s flood Lieberman.

Morning all, Diane Rehm has Professors Walt and Mearsheimer on– very interesting.

Phone calls have been made to my senators already!

Miro, that would appear to be the logical conclusion. I think it’s all of it - profits and a cozy relationship with NSA amount to the same thing. I would love to do an investigative piece on the SF room. All part of the Dark Side.

Oh, and by the way, what ever happened to the “commonwealth?” Virginia was named that when Jefferson was governor. I don’t think it is a commonwealth now. Grr.

OT– headline at Raw Story:

Democratic leaders may split over Lieberman… Soon…

I attended an EMR conference yesterday (Electronic Medical Records, what I do in my day job). During the Q&A in the afternoon session, I asked the presenter, an MD who’s been in the EMR software business for years, and who’d just finished extolling the potential small-practice virtues of the “ASP” model of EMRs (Application Service Provider, basically one where your EMR is hosted off-site and accessed through a browser across the internet), if he’d ever heard the phrase “net neutrality?”

Dead silence in the room full of doctors, nurses, and practice managers. NO ONE knew what I was talking about. The speaker was clueless. First time he’d ever heard the phrase.

The competitive viability of the ASP model assumes dumb pipe net neutrality. I’m gonna start emailing the major ASP model vendors today (a rapid growth area of the EMR market, given its “subscription model” lowered barriers to entry) to try to get a sense of the overall awareness of the potential negative impact here. Probably nil.

This morning Imus said he sends off groups of kids after their stint at Imus Ranch with the prompt “Don’t take any crap off anyone.”

Maybe those Dems sans spines could learn from that. And if he can say it on radio/MSNBC, surely we can say “Cut the crap and run the Republican rascals outa town….”

Further on Imus, this is a totally unscientific opinion, but it seems to me his show is a barometer of what the Repub talking points of the day will be and what they’re trying to accomplish. You always know the Repubs are really in deep doo-doo when they orchestrate having Matalin on. Yes I do take strong personal offense at this woman–part of the Coulter cadre. Didja notice?

Anyway, why handicap ourselves by only noting the Sunday morning gasbag shows?

It’s been a while since I’ve been involved in the specifics of telecom, so I’m not sure how to think about the new WiFi architecture. Google won the bid to provide SF free WiFi service to be available next year to everyone. This is another area where there could be lots of questions about abuse, depending on what happens with Google.

Prairie at 49 — I try to catch a little Imus when I can or when he has a guest on that I want to keep an eye on for some reason — but his co-host crew really tick me off, especially the winger, kool-aidy one who constantly says factually inaccurate crap and no one ever calls him on it. (Can’t remember his name, the gentleman — and I use that term lightly — with the moustache that also likes to talk sports between spews.) So more power to you if you can stand the show day in and day out. And I think you are right — it is a sort of barometer, because Imus tends to pander to what he sees as the conventional wisdom of the moment.

AT&T to Americans: kiss your privacy goodbye.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/.....e=business

BobbyG - I’m dying to know “the rest of the story;” did you clue these people in while you had them captive?

Your experience mirrors mine - whenever I bring it up, and no matter who I ask, I always get the blank stare. I think people just assume that the freedom they have on the ‘net will always be there.

angie 47, while at RS checking on the story you mention, I also followed one back to The Australian, wherein Armitage

said he believed the Iraqis would soon ask the US to leave their country[, and] was equally gloomy about Afghanistan, especially in the south, where violence was worsening … .

Another headline at Raw Story:

SHOCK: HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE PASSES RESOLUTION TO DEMAND ALL INFORMATION ON NSA PHONE RECORDS… DEVELOPING….

Good morning everybody,
I just called Cantswell’s and Murray’s offices. Unfortunately, only got the voicemail for Cantwell’s NN person Michael Dau (sp?)
Murray’s person gave me a bunch of BS about “the Senator has always supported free access to information and education…”
I asked her at that point whether the senator supported Snowe-Dorgan, which took her back, and she said PM hadn’t released a statement. I then asked if that meant that i) she hadn’t formulated and opinion, or ii) she has on opinion and just wasn’t telling anyone yet. The staffer assured me very enthusiastically that she was sure that PM had an opinion, to which I asked, when does she plan to share that with her constituents? This really took her aback, and while she stammered for a moment, I let her know that it was very frustrating as a constituent, and a Democratic voter and contributor, that I cannot find out about my senator’s opinions on issues of tremendous importance. I told her that especially given the importance of software and the internet to the local economy (Seattle) that Murray needed to LEAD on this issue, that the issue was vital to me personally (not in the software biz) and the community in general that the integrity of the internet not be evicerated by the telecom industry. That she needed to actively participate in the debate and to try to stop Ted Stevens in his machinations on the behalf of big telco.

That felt good, but damn it’s maddening that they think it’s OK to formulate opinions and position, but not tell anybody, not to lead on an issue or allow their constituents to know DURING the debate where they stand. Sheesh.

Welcome, Nancy. already you’ve added something I hadn’t considered yet - “Perhaps congress will feel obligated to pay them for spying on us.” When do you suppose congress’ll feel obligated to us again?

BobbyG, that’s a new one. I wonder what major software companies think about the bill? We have SeeBeyond and Parasoft hq’d in my town. Wonder what their PR departments are doing about it? I think I’ll make some phone calls today.

Anne says
June 21st, 2006 at 7:34 am

BobbyG - I’m dying to know “the rest of the story;” did you clue these people in while you had them captive?
____________

Oh, yes. I think the speaker was embarrassed. He’d been on a roll, and I pee’ed in his tea.

And, my quick summary of the issue and its import caused quite a buzz.

RE:”
Alvord says: at 6:27 am

I called Senator Gordon Smith’s (Republican, Oregon) office, even though i am a californian- my son is going to Reed college in Portland in the fall- i was told Sentor Gordon believes “there are GOOD ARGUMENTS” on both sides, and he hasn’t made up his mind. the guy told me, for instance, that if net neutrality is maintained, people’s cable bills will go up… sounds like they have a position to me…

Good morning. Is anyone else experiencing server problems? I had to come in through the side door with the alternate link.

BobbyG — good on you! And Mommybrain, I think that is a fantastic idea — for those of you who live near some major industry/corporate interests who would be seriously impacted by this, some calls today as early as possible might get some balls rolling that need to be on the move.

This is one of the many reasons I love our commenters so much. :)

Busted — no problems for me. Might be a DNS issue from remnants of our server move.

BobbyG, that’s fantastic. There is so much going on in Congress that most Americans do not know. My fave last week was voting themselves a $3,300 pay raise while refusing to raise the minimum wage. Sweet.

On Friday I called Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray offices around 2:30 PM EDT, gave name, hometown then asked for the Net Neutrality point man.
In both cases the point man was not available.
OK then what about another staff member on NN?
Well he’s the man.
Try calling again on Monday.
OK I’ll call again on Monday.
[Both offices keep a tally of pros and cons, yes or no for each issue.]
And put me down in strong support of NN.
Against any sellout or giveaway to the telecoms.
I don’t want to see happen to the internet what happened to TV
The internet belongs to its users.
Corporate hands off.
But do Maria/Patty HAVE a position on the Snowe-Dorgan vote?
No official position at this time but she’s in favor of open communication.
OK but she doesn’t HAVE a position on Snowe-Dorgan?
Why DOESN’T she have a position, with her experience in the communications industry and the Senate?

silence

[I describe the typical Congressional Representative for the receptionist:]
It concerns me that our Representatives ask us to be patient while they “study the issue” or “get more input from our constituents”.
This one-way communication continues right up until the vote, after which any meaningful discussion is moot and there’s nothing left to do but commisserate about the loss of more citizens’ rights.
We shouldn’t have to call and pester you folks for our Senator’s’ position, swarm your fax machine and generally make a nuisance for you.
But the Senator’s staff should have already studied the legislation, have already prepared the Senator to discuss the bill’s implications with their constituents.
The Senator should HAVE a position AND the explanation of how they arrived on that position - well ahead of their vote.
The lack of a position just tells constituents their representative lacks diligence and confidence of conviction and brings into question their leadership ability, maybe even their integrity.
We need TIMELY two-way communication with our Senators on these important issues affecting our Constitutional rights.
Those newsletters and post mortem letters just don’t cut it any more.
OK thanks for listening to me and I hope you have a great weekend!

I called Cantwell’s office several times on Monday and again this morning.
The phone rings, no one picks up.
I’m guessing she’ll sell us out.

Unfortunately we have two corporate stooges - a Democrat and a Republican - running against each other for Senator from Washington State.

Good ol’ BobbyG!

Now for ANOTHER OT-but-of-interest:

how returning soldiers and others in his district see Murtha’s efforts

Micheal Kirk, the producer for last nite’s Frontline is taking questions at 11 am today at the wapoo–

http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....01204.html

Hi Nancy @ 6:34 am Welcome!

Good on ya for calling your senators.

Called my own guys: Kerry is for Snowe-Dorgan, net neutrality. Kennedy hasn’t taken a formal position. As the person I spoke to said, his record shows he’d certainly vote for net neutrality. Put in my two cents for him to do that - to vote for the Snowe-Dorgan, the real thing, accept no substitute amendment.
Teddy is smart and so’s his staff — I expect that he’ll vote for it. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt for other MA people to call!

Anyone who calls should definitely make sure that their Senator’s staff person understands that passing Ted Stevens’ phony amendment is not really a vote for net neutrality!

glc

Good work, justintime!

Sent LARGE TYPE faxes to my senators yesterday and made follow-up calls today. Lautenberg, who sits on the committee, is one of my senators.

Justintime 64 - Absolutely on the stooges comment. I am SO disgusted with Cantwell, and disspirited about the lack of alternatives, though perhaps Tran in the primary. Come November, I’m really gonna have to hold my nose…

I attended a rally for Darcy Burner (running against that tool Reichert in the WA-8th) in downtown Seattle last Friday. I was astounded at the number of young women carrying Cantwell placards and wearing Cantwell t-shirts - don’t they understand what she did to their rights re:Alito? What the…

it’s worth bringing john aravosis into this discussion - i believe he worked in the office of Ted Stevens for some time in the recent past, and can probably help illuminate this guy’s motivations and cronyism like no one else can.

anyone have open communications with john?

Yes, with an analogy of my own. Net Content is not broadcast, it’s provided to order: like food in a restaurant. Without net neutrality, with the “fast priority channels” paid for by content providers, it would be like having a waiter who takes your order for a filet mignon and charges the chef to deliver the food on time. I’m already paying the waiter in the price of the food and a tip, but if the chef doesn’t pay the waiter as well I get cold food - and different chefs get charged differently, and some waiters may not deliver some chefs’ food at all, although it’s on the menu.

EPU-ed? Back atcha Christy…my take is not so much what Imus and his crew do. Either Charles the evangelical or Bernie the mouth…mostly Bernie the mouth never lets the facts get in the way of his snideness, but that’s what he’s paid for.

More, it’s seeing/hearing what the guests are saying. What agenda they’re pushing.

I’m sorry — chronically OT this morning — but isn’t CSPAN-2 supposed to be on the Senate Iraq debate right now? They’re in an minimum-wage debate instead.

Yes, I emailed a letter to the editor and then copied it to several friends asking them to contact our senators. I also called Senators Boxer and Feinstein.

Thanks!

lotus– It’s an amendment that Kennedy is trying to get thru on the appropriation bill.

Ah, thanks, angie.

CHS at 61 This is one of the many reasons I love our commenters so much. :)

I initially read this as commenteers, like Mouseketeers :o

M. M. Club question: Tuesday is guest star day, one day is the circus, one is the rodeo, which day is which feature?

I ask partly because of thinking about the value of specialized topics on certain days, which fdl is beginning to do, ie, books on Sunday.

Just contacted Frank Lautenberg’s office. The staffer claimed that FL fully supports NN, but he has not indicated any kind of direction for support of the bill. I then asked what would prevent FL from voting for this bill if he is in favor of NN. The response was that FL has to review the bill for any amendments that are added on which could cause him to not support the bill.

Anyone know of any cheeky amendments that could screw the works?

angie @ 66,

Thanks for the link! You can also join the discussion here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/.....side/talk/

Did anyone else see the repeat on Cspan last night on Ykos panel with CHS? A most excellent night to watch teevee…

BobbyG,
We need to talk!!! The hospital I work for is purchasing a new clinical applications information system. Either from Epic or Cerner. Both presume that the patient has ‘net access. We can handle the inhouse traffic just fine with 2 mainframes and however many servers we’ve got, but…that assumption that patients have ‘net access!!

I emailed both of my Senators on Monday. Tuesday I got a reply from Harkin. His email read to me that he’s in favor of ‘net neutrality. Haven’t heard from Grassley, but his mail about the NSA, stating he’s on the Pres’s side, doesn’t look promising. My district representative Leach is also in favor of ‘net neutrality.

justintime @ #64 and tasch @ #56 and Alvord @ #16 and whoever posted from CT about Lieberman and Dodd:

perfect examples of the frustrations of working with the “uncommitteds” on this! The key is INOUYE and his longtime relationship to Saint Ted! As I pointed out in Christy’s “ernestine” thread monday morning:

“In the Senate Commerce Committee link which Christy provides above, we have Sen. Stevens addressing company representatives and state/regional cable association executives at the National Cable and Telecommunications Association’s Key Contacts Breakfast on June 6. Stevens says this about their chief lobbyist:

“He has appeared before our Committee so many times, he has a seat there with his name on it now.” Ouch!

He concludes the speech by giving a bit of (false?) hope. Committee co-chair is Daniel Inouye. Stevens and Inouye have been crafting compromises for years. Inouye is pro- nn, so:

“A new draft [of the legislation] will be circulated this week.  I can’t go into the details with you today because I’m still clearing it with Senator Inouye. He’s my partner, my brother, and we work closely together. He has views that aren’t quite mine, however, so we do have to find ways to come together, even the two of us who are Co-Chairmen of our Committee.”

I’ve e-mailed Sen. Murkowski, whose position isn’t yet known, and the local talk shows aren’t supporting Saint Ted.”

What sofistic 41 said!!

ET at 82
FWIW, I also called Inouye’s office, explained that I wasn’t a Hawaii resident, but a Democrat, and supported his efforts to protect NN and oppose the Stevens telco giveaway.

Dover Bitch,

OT, but an irker to me:

“He swindled $223 million from the American people for a “bridge to nowhere.”"

If you google the term “bridge to nowhere” or, more correctly, “bridges to nowhere,” you get thousands upon thousands of links to articles about the Knik Arm crossing bridge and the Gravina Island bridge so full of ignorance, cold indifference toward Alaskan affairs and willful ignorance, you could chill down the Arctic enough to slow global warming for a few weeks or more.

More money is wasted on earmark “roads to somewhere” mileage in the Michigan City-Gary-Chicago-Milwaukee axis in a year than total road mileage EXISTS in Alaska now or within the next fifty years.

I’m an ardent environmentalist. I’m 100% anti-ANWR drilling. But I’ve also participated in many responsible development projects here. Most educated Alaskans want our economy to grow and diversify so that there will be high-paying, interesting jobs here for our kids and grandkids. If that happens, they’ll go away to the lower 48 to college and return here after graduating, unlike now when well over half don’t. Our educated kids who leave for lack of opportunity are replaced by ill-educated fundamentalists from the Texas-Louisiana-Oklahoma oilbelt, who come up, take non-union jobs from union workers, and help steer our state in a seemingly unalterable course further toward the right.

Progressives who dismiss Alaska development while spouting inane talking points only help build a longer bridge between true progress up here and a fairly valid perception here that people in the lower 48 want to “save” Alaska so they feel less bad about their failures to preserve environmental quality in their own back yard.

I know this is EPU territory, but it’s on topic. BobbyG’s comment made me wonder about our ISP’s. Should we all be calling the companies that supply us the ability to get to FDL everyday? A quick local phone call will answer my question…

Beware the ‘ol good cop/bad cop bait and switch. Inouye and Stevens are best friends from way back. Honestly, I don’t see what strategy they’re working on yet, but I guarantee when all is said and done this issue will not be resolved in the way that it appears.

We will lose this issue. The liberal voices in most blogs out there have abandoned it. I see no real spine. Look at the ads they accept. Can’t they forego helping the telecos advertise at least on this one issue. Hypocrisy seems to abound. This is why we can’t win. Where is the integrity?

I at least called my representatives.

FWIW, finally had a chance to call George Allen’s office; his staffer says they have received tons of phone calls, overwhelmingly in support of S 2917; George is “studying the matter”; no position yet.

the skippy challenge

look, guys, i’m not trying to be a jerk here, but i think this is a very important point.

you know i love fdl and the folks who write and create it.

but it seems to be an incredibly short-sighted and stupid move to run the “save the internet” ad, which, as we all know, is financed by the telco’s, is completely against net neutrality, and, to the casual surfer (ie, someone who comes to blogs and fdl for the first time) actually quite persuasive.

the agonist and my left wing have permanent disclaimers on their blogs by the ad.

annatopia and steve gilliard have pledged to donate the money the get from the ad to savetheinternet.com.

matt stoller of mydd, however, needs the money apparently to buy furniture, or so he told me in an exchange on that blog.

skippy refuses to run the ad.

if it was only a matter of editorial choice versus ad revenue (tho i pretty much eviserated that argument here), then i would just leave it at “to each their own, and who am i to say anything?”

but on this specific issue, it comes down to taking short term profit instead of long term problem solving. blogs who run the ad are taking money from the very people that want to limit our ability to access our audience (and visa versa).

i call upon fdl to either (a) put up a permanent disclaimer next to the ad for as long as the ad runs, or (b) donate the amount of money you received from the ad revenue to savetheinternet.com.

to show my good faith, i will donate to savetheinternet.com the total amount of ad revenue that skippy would charge for three months, had i taken the ad.

granted, skippy’s revenue is not as big as fdl’s. but at this point, every little bit going to savetheinternet.com will help us in this matter.

upon reflection, i must point out that my challenge above is just a repetition of one i’ve put on the big blogs who run the ad…

i didn’t really take into account the actual circumstances that fdl is going thru right now…ie, jane’s taking care of her sick mom, and christy (who knows even less about html than i do) is holding down the fort.

i don’t actually expect fdl to scramble at this point to prove me right or wrong. first thing needed is for jane’s mom to get better.

all the best to you and your mom, jane!

Thanks for the welcome. Tad at 23, never thought of us paying NSA to spy on us. Guess it figures, money, money , money–NSA, phone corporations, congress. Sane people would not pay the government to spy on themselves. Glad the ACLU is making suit against AT&T. Mommybrain at 57–Good ? I still waiting for congress to feel obligated to us.